Ex imperio matronis. Glocalising the votive altars of the Rhineland Matronae-cult (20 BCE – 250 CE)

Abstract

During the first and second centuries CE the civitas Ubiorum, located roughly between Neuss, Bonn and Aachen, was home to the cult of the Matronae, a triad of matron-deities. With over 600 dedications, it is by far the largest known cult attested in the Roman province of Germania Inferior. Its characteristics are diverse: the deities are dressed in traditional clothing of the Ubii (a Germanic tribe inhabiting the civitas Ubiorum since 20/19 BCE), they bear a multitude of names of Celtic and Germanic origin, and they are worshipped using Roman votive altars. This complex background has led researchers to various conclusions on the origins and development of the Rhineland Matronae-cult since the late nineteenth century. This thesis uses the theoretical framework of globalisation to offer a new perspective on this topic, focusing on the question to what extent the votive inscriptions indicate a glocalised development of the cult. To do so, a new database, collecting over 600 votive inscriptions of the Matronae-cult, was created. This thesis argues that, in contrast to earlier scholarship that hypothesized a “transfer” of an Italic cult to the Rhineland, the Matronae-cult was shaped in a process of incorporation into the globalised Roman world, through influences from Gallo- Roman inhabitants of the territory and Ubian religious practices that continued within the context of the Roman Empire.